


It Must Be Love

by Sir_Bedevere



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Adam is a Bastard, And Ferg can give as good as he gets, But he is Fergus' bastard, Fluff, Humor, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Politics, Romantic Fluff, Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:35:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26794501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sir_Bedevere/pseuds/Sir_Bedevere
Summary: I never thought I'd love you, half as much, as I do.Four ways Adam looks after Fergus and one way that Fergus looks after him.
Relationships: Adam Kenyon/Fergus Williams
Comments: 25
Kudos: 67





	It Must Be Love

**Author's Note:**

> I made up the name of Fergus' seat. I couldn't be bothered doing actual research.
> 
> Title from the Madness song, in case that wasn't blindingly obvious.

(i)

The Lib Dems weren’t exactly the party that Adam thought he’d throw his lot in with, but here is he on election night, on the wrong side of the New Forest, chewing his thumbnail (literally) over the seat for Grinshurst. 

Bloody Grinshurst.

He’d never even heard of the place until he ended up helping to run Fergus’ campaign, and wasn’t that a bloody swan dive off a cliff, politically speaking. And it is fucking useless as well; Dorset is full of pensioners and farmers and Tories. Any seat that isn’t blue is an anomaly, except they’ve redrawn the boundaries for this election and now Grinshurst exists where it hasn’t before. And the Libs reckon they’re close enough to the edges of Bournemouth where a lot of the students live that they might have a chance. Adam thinks they’re fucked, but he hasn’t said that to Fergus. Well, not in so many words anyway. 

“Christ, I’d rather stick splinters under my toenails than wait around here,” Fergus grumbles, clutching a cup of coffee so hard that the cardboard is buckling. 

“Don’t do that,” Adam says, his eyes on the TV screen in the corner. “I haven’t got another shirt for you if you mess up that one.”

Fergus does as he’s told. At least he always does as he’s told. 

The village hall isn’t entirely shit, Adam is prepared to admit. The Tory local council have been spending decent money on it, hoping to remind people that the only thing worse than a shit village hall is a vote for a Lib Dem. The hall is big enough that they have their own corner to themselves, and the chairs are comfy. Adam is sprawled out over two of them, his feet up, and his jacket hanging off the back. Some Tory lackey had looked disapprovingly at his feet on the chair and tutted, and Adam didn’t even tell her where to stick it. They haven’t won yet, after all.

He is too busy watching the TV to give a shit anyway. The results are coming in slowly. Very slowly. So iceberg-meltingly slowly that it seems there are some serious close counts going on. The Tory safe seat of Solihul had swung yellow twenty minutes before, and Adam’s heart had done a weird little jump. 

“They’re looking at me,” Fergus mutters, drumming his fingers on his knees, and shifting about in his seat. “The bloody Tories are looking at me.”

“Stop twitching,” Adam hisses. “You look like you’ve shit yourself.”

Fergus goes red up to the roots of his hair, and jumps to his feet. 

“I’m going for some fresh air.”

“Alright.”

Fergus is like a golden retriever permanently in need of walkies, and Adam is getting tired of holding the lead so tightly. They’re going to have to work on that, if Fergus wins the seat. If being a pretty big fucking if; Fergus is a clever bloke, but between those braincells he has about as much air in his head as one of those dogs too, and Adam isn’t sure they’ve done enough to convince the biddies of Grinshurst that he even understands what job he is letting himself in for. Adam watches him from the corner of his eye as Fergus stamps out of the hall, and wonders how he ended up here. 

Still, work to be done. No one can say that Adam Kenyon doesn’t have a work ethic. 

He peels himself out of the chair and wanders over to the coffee table. Someone has pushed the boat out and got some of those flavoured syrups, and Adam watches in disgust as one of the Labour kids pumps four shots of hazelnut crap into a cup. 

“You’ll get diabetes if you drink that,” Adam says, but the bloke doesn’t even flinch. 

“I’d rather be in hospital having my foot cut off than be here,” he replies, and Adam chuckles. The only thing worse than being a Lib Dem in Tory heartland is being Labour in Tory heartland. 

He pours himself a coffee and, keeping his eyes on the screen, he wanders over to Tory corner. Their puffed-up peacock candidate isn’t with them, which means he is probably outside near Fergus, and the campaign has hardly been a clean one, but Adam can’t fight every fire at once. 

“I know that Fergus is the first bloke you’ve ever seen who went to Oxford but doesn’t have a receding chin,” he says casually. “But if you keep up the little whispers and the staring, I’ll have to get involved.”

“What are you talking about?”

The wank stain who gets to his feet, Patrick something, has been a thorn in Adam’s side the whole campaign, and a perfect example of the Tory chin defect. Adam has fantastised about punching that chin. 

“You’re trying to freak him out, and I’ve had enough. It’s too late now anyway. It’s over. So this is your polite warning to stop.”

“Is he capable of doing anything for himself?” Patrick grins. “Why aren’t you running, if little Fergie gets freaked out by the big boys?”

Adam shoves the hand not holding his coffee into his pocket, and grins back. 

“You’ll not be laughing when we win, and then we can talk about who can fight battles.”

Patrick looks like he’s about to come back again, so painfully unaware of how punched he is about to be, when the mayor walks onto the stage and claps her hands. 

“Alright, folks. We’re ready.”

In the race out of the hall to collect wandering candidates, Adam beats Patrick hands down. Tory twat.

Fergus is round the back of the hall, a suspicious cigarette butt at his feet, and he looks about as miserable as Adam feels.

“Come on. It’s time.”

“Oh _fuck._ ” Fergus says, his eyes wide, as though Adam has just thrust this on him and he hasn’t been informed what he’s let himself in for. “What did the mayor say?”

“She didn’t say anything, you idiot,” Adam says, reaching out to straighten up Fergus’s tie. He touches him a lot, he’s started to notice. He doesn’t really want to think about that. Instead, he grabs his elbow and drags him inside. 

“Adam, Adam, wait.”

“Fuck me, Ferg, this is it!” Adam says. “What are you waiting for?”

Fergus is grey and Adam wonders if he’s going to throw up. He better bloody not – he hadn’t been joking about the spare shirt.

“Just, I want to say thank you. For your hard work,” Fergus says. “We’ve been fucked from the start, I know that, but you’ve been great.”

God, he means it. Adam isn’t great with sentimentality, so he pats Fergus on the shoulder.

“It’s alright. We’ll go and get pissed after, alright? Ten minutes and it’s all over.”

Fergus nods, and walks the condemned walk to the stage. 

Adam crosses his arms and bites his thumb, watching the motley crew assemble. 

The fucking Lib Dems. Why had he ended up with a Lib Dem? 

And why was it one that he had to like as much as he liked Fergus? 

(ii)

Adam has never been humble.

He knows that about himself, and he’s fine with it. Humility doesn’t get you anywhere, unless you’re aiming for sainthood, and God knows Adam Kenyon isn’t first on that list. But it is even harder to keep his ego in check when he knows, deep in his bones, that Fergus Williams would already be dead from self-neglect if he weren’t a part of his life.

“What is this?” Fergus mumbles, as Adam puts a container of soup on his desk, and dumps a plastic spoon next to it. Fuck the penguins; plastic means that he doesn’t have to wash up. 

“It’s lunch, obviously,” Adam says, and takes his own soup out of the bag. “You might be confused because four pm isn’t the usual time to eat it.”

“Well, you haven’t eaten either,” Fergus grumbles, cracking open the lid and getting hit square in the face with the steam. He blinks furiously, and pouts. It might be cute, if he wasn’t a thirty-four year old man who was meant to be helping to run the country. 

“I had lunch,” Adam replies, dipping his spoon into the soup and licking it experimentally. “This is a snack.”

Fergus is still pouting when he takes his first taste, but Adam knows he will like it. He’s made quite the study over the last year. Wikipedia has nothing on him when it comes to Fergus Williams, MP.

“You’re an insufferable prick sometimes,” Fergus says between slurps, as he leans over to try and stop himself dripping all over his tie. “Did you know?”

Insufferable is the least insulting thing Adam has ever been called, and probably one of the truest, so he shrugs, making a show of sucking soup slowly from the spoon, because he likes the way that Fergus stares. 

Skipping lunch isn’t the worst of Fergus’ vices, though. For all his bitching and complaining, Fergus works hard. He really does. He usually beats Adam to the office in the morning, and if Adam let him, he’d stay after he left as well. Bloody Mannion doesn’t work nearly as hard as Ferg does. 

Two days before they break for Christmas, a rainy five-thirty, Adam is on his way back to DoSAC. He’s been out causing merry chaos at Downing Street and he could right now be going home to collapse on the sofa in front of Breaking Bad, content in the knowledge that he’s done a good job sowing the seeds of discord. Instead, he’s almost back at the office – because of Fergus, of course. 

The stupid bastard looked like a sack of shit that morning when he crawled in the door, and wouldn’t go home, despite even Mannion dredging up ten seconds of humanity and suggesting that Fergus should be in bed. 

And, just as Adam suspected, Fergus is still there, at his desk. Passed out, to be more precise. Adam grumbles under his breath and hurls his bag in through the door, knocking the ugly lamp over and waking Fergus with the clatter. 

“What-”

“Go home, you idiot,” Adam says, stalking over to the desk. “You’re literally asleep.”

Fergus has creases on his cheek where he was resting on his arm, and Adam shoves his hands into his pockets to stop himself reaching out and tracing over them. It does also help calm his fucking libido that Fergus looks even more dopey than usual. Puts the dampeners right on it. 

“Adam?”

“Yeah, who else?” he asks, and does reach out after all to put the back of his hand to Fergus’ forehead. Christ, he’s like a fucking boiled kettle.

“Don’t feel very good,” Fergus sighs, rubbing his eyes. “I think I should – go home?”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Adam snaps, but he’s already gone to get Fergus’ coat from the stand in the corner, and he hustles him into it. Fergus is like a fucking Muppet, all over the place, and Adam hates – _hates_ – how protective that makes him feel. 

“Alright, Kermit,” he says. “Let’s go.”

Fergus doesn’t get a driver like Mannion does, but Adam thinks that might not be a bad thing when Fergus falls asleep against his shoulder in the cab. Saves the trouble of a lot of gossip, that. 

He had been planning to shove him out of the cab and let him fend for himself once he was home, but Fergus is so out of it when he shakes him awake that Adam ends up getting out too. 

“Come on,” he says, pulling Fergus along by his lapel. “Let’s get you to bed, hey?”

“Waitin’ for you to say that for a long time,” Fergus chuckles, then goes quiet, thank God. Adam doesn’t think about it. Safer that way. 

He’s only been to Fergus’ place once, but once, it seems, is enough. He gets him in the door and upstairs with only the mildest cursing, most of it aimed at the fucking architect who designed a staircase like it taking was pride of place in the bowels of London Dungeon, and shoves Fergus into his bedroom. 

“Sort yourself. I’ll get you some paracetamol.”

God, he hopes Fergus can sort himself out.

In the bathroom, Adam contemplates the paracetamol and the ibuprofen in the bathroom cabinet, then decides to double dose Fergus. Might do him some good. The glass on the sink is disgusting but he fills it anyway. Serves Fergus right for not washing it properly. 

Back in the bedroom, Fergus has managed to get his trousers off and fallen face first on the bed. He’s already snoring. Adam averts his eyes and wrestles him onto his back. He unknots the tie that Fergus had a good crack at untying, and undoes his top button. That will have to do.

Then he shakes him awake and forces the pills and the water down Fergus’ neck. 

When he catches himself contemplating sleeping on the sofa, to keep an eye on him, he balks and gets out the door as fast as he can.

(iii)

Fergus has been ignoring his mobile all morning. 

Adam knows this because every time it vibrates, Fergus tuts and looks over at it, then just keeps right on ignoring it. The buzzing feels like a pneumatic drill going straight through Adam’s skull.

When they eventually get up to leave the office, Fergus puts the bloody thing in his pocket but still doesn’t answer it.

“Who the fuck are you ignoring?” Adam asks, as they clatter down the stairs. 

“My mum,” Fergus says. “You know what she’s like. I’ll be stuck on there for hours.” 

“What does she want?”

“Well, I don’t know, do I, genius? That involves answering it and talking to her.”

Adam could, quite literally, put his own head through a window when he’s trying to deal with Fergus in a mood like this. 

“Maybe if you did answer it, she’d stop.”

“Why don’t _you_ answer it?”

They’re on the way to the Department of Education, dodging the summer tourists who have flooded Whitehall and gathered around the Cenotaph. Adam entertains a brief fantasy about strangling a particularly obnoxious American with his own camera strap. The image of the fat twat’s eyeballs popping out of his skull is remarkably soothing, soothing enough that the next thing he says is, “I will answer it, if you want.”

He doesn’t have time to regret the offer, because seconds later the vibrating has started again, and Fergus has shoved it into his hand. 

“Hello – Mrs Williams. It’s Adam here.”

“Adam who?”

“Er, Adam Kenyon. Fergus’ special-”

“Oh, Adam. Sorry, love, I’m all in a tizzy,” she says, and then she is sobbing. Adam holds the phone away from his ear until she sounds like she is breathing again. Christ, some aunt or something has popped her clogs.

“Er - are you alright?”

“Where’s Fergus?”

“He’s in a meeting. With the Education Secretary,” Adam says, watching as Fergus skips ahead of him, suddenly in a brilliant fucking mood compared to how he’s been the last few days. Give him a field of daisies and he’d be right there, frolicking. 

“Of course. Could you tell him-” she pauses, and Adam bites at his thumbnail. “Could you tell him we had to have Jingle put down this morning? Please.”

Adam casts about, trying to remember which of Mrs Williams’ menagerie had that unfortunate name. Nothing. Total blank. 

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” he replies instead. “I’ll be sure to let him know.”

Adam isn’t good with mothers, or older women, or women who are crying, and Mrs Williams is all three. He never knows what to say. 

Fergus has stopped at the door of the Education building and is looking at him smugly, so suddenly the words do come to Adam after all. 

“I’ll get him to phone you as soon as he’s done. I promise.”

Fergus is waving frantically but Adam just gives him the finger. 

“Thank you, love.”

“No problem, Mrs Williams. Bye bye now.”

“Why did you do that? I specifically and quite clearly didn’t want to talk to her!” Fergus explodes, as Adam switches the phone to silent and pockets it. Can’t have it going off in the meeting. 

“You need to talk to your mother,” Adam says. “She’s distraught about Pringle.”

“Pringle? Pringle – oh fuck. Do you mean Jingle?”

“Probably.” 

Adam crams himself into the revolving door and pushes it too quickly for Fergus to hop in behind him. It’s exactly petty enough for Fergus to know exactly how annoyed Adam is. He’s not his fucking PA. 

“Jingle’s the fucking Shetland,” Fergus says glumly, following Adam inside the building. “I’ll be on there for hours, Adam.”

“It really truly does suck to be you.”

(iv)

Adam is not a morning person. He’s quite prepared to admit that. It’s why he was so good on the night desk at the Mail, and why at least one of the interns there was convinced that he was actually a vampire. It was in the Twilight era. The kids were all out of their fucking minds. 

He’s thinking about that now, because Fergus has woken him up at the literal crack of dawn, and he’s trying to talk to him. 

“Ferg, it’s dark outside,” Adam groans, covering his eyes with his arm. The bed is warm, and Fergus’ memory foam pillow has just recently started doing its job and remembering the shape of Adam’s head, so all in all, it has been a cosy sleep, and one he is not yet ready to give up on.

“I made you a coffee,” Fergus says, and there’s a clink as a mug is put down somewhere near Adam’s head. There is nothing he wants less in the world right now than coffee. He makes this point by pulling the duvet over his head and rolling over. 

“Piss off, Fergus, please. It’s so early.”

“There’s journalists outside.”

It takes a few seconds for Fergus’ words, said quite casually, to sink in, and then Adam almost falls out of the bed as he rolls over so quickly that Fergus has to put out a hand to save him.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Fergus flips on the bedside lamp and Adam hisses. Maybe those vampire rumours did have some truth to them. He covers his eyes and breathes slowly. 

“Fergus-”

“There are journalists outside. Well, photographers. Definitely photographers. They have cameras.”

Adam’s brain is struggling to process the rambling, and he reaches out blindly for his glasses. He will be needing that coffee after all. Slowly, blinking against the light, he sits up and takes the mug. It’s the Monty Python one. He likes that one. 

“Alright,” he says, after a sip. “Photographers outside. Your house. On a Sunday morning.”

“Yep,” Fergus says miserably, and sips from his own mug of coffee. “Do you think they followed us? Why would they be here on a weekend?”

“Have you checked the news?” Adam asks, reaching for his phone. “Has anything happened that you will need to make a statement on? Have Terri and Glen finally thrown themselves into the river in that suicide pact? Has Mannion been caught groping pole dancers?”

“I already looked,” Fergus says, waving his phone in front of Adam. “I’m not a complete idiot.”

“I know,” Adam sighs. “I know.” 

It’s barely light outside, and Adam really, really wishes he could pull Ferg back under the duvet and go back to sleep.

“Alright. So maybe they followed us,” Adam says carefully. “I didn’t see them though. Did you see them?”

“Nope.” Fergus shakes his head. They’ve been so careful. It’s more trouble than it is worth for an MP to be seen messing about one of their members of staff, even if they are both free and single. It isn’t like Fergus is out either, but that feels like the least of their problems. 

And Fergus waking him up before the dawn is also seeming like less of an issue too. Adam chugs the rest of his coffee and picks up his phone. 

Time to call in a favour.

“Get back here,” he says softly, lifting the duvet so that Fergus can slip back in next to him. Adam puts an arm around him, playing his fingers softly through the hair at the base of Fergus’ neck. There’s tension there, of course, and Adam has found that there is nothing better than this to calm him down. 

Then Adam dials.

Angela picks up after nine rings. She always has her phone in her hand, glued to her, and he knows that she let it ring on purpose. Just to piss him off. 

“Hello there, Romeo,” she drawls, sounding much more awake than Adam is. He tenses. She already knows, the bitch. 

“Yeah, yeah. I need a favour.”

He hears Angela put her feet up on the desk, two clunks. 

“Is this to do with the pack of dogs camping outside Fergus Williams’ house?”

“You know it is,” Adam says, trying to keep his voice even. He pulls slightly too hard on Fergus’ hair, because he squeaks. God, Adam hopes Angela didn’t hear that. 

“What’s it worth?”

“Whatever you want.” His teeth are grinding. The dentist is going to have his head if he keeps grinding his teeth. He’s already on a yellow card. 

“Promises, promises. Alright. I’ll keep it in mind, but you owe me big time.”

“Just call them off. Please.”

“Get ready to run,” she says, and hangs up.

Adam isn’t slow in doing as he’s told. He kisses Fergus’ cheek and hurls himself out of bed, collecting up his clothes that have been strewn around the floor. And over the chair. And in the bathroom. 

“What’s going on?”

“Angela’s going to call her boys off,” Adam says, hopping on one foot as he tugs on his jeans. “The others will go with them, if she puts about a good enough story happening somewhere else. And I need to get out of here.”

“What did you promise her?”

“Anything she wants. So we’ll be fucked anyway, but not right now. And not about this.”

Adam clatters down the stairs, and grabs his shoes. Fergus has followed him, mug still in hand, and he’s hovering. 

“I’m sorry. That it’s like this.”

He is genuinely in that apology too, which makes Adam want to peel his own skin off just so he can scrub it clean. Does Fergus really think he’s that much of a dickhead that he’d blame him for the inherent homophobia that props up the hypocritical British system, a system that punishes people for being gay whilst also allowing more than a decent number of blokes to have been on the end of a blowjob more than once, as long as it gets the job done?

“Don’t do that. It’s not your fault. Can you watch and see if they fuck off?”

Fergus takes his place by the front window, peering out between the slats of the blind. 

“One of the vans has gone already. The others are packing up.”

“Okay.”

Adam grabs an old hoodie of Fergus’ that hangs on the coat rack and puts it on, pulling the hood up. It’s a bit tight round his shoulders but he only needs it until he gets into a taxi. Then he wraps his scarf around the bottom of his face and puts on his coat over the top of it all. It’s a shit disguise but it’s the best he can do. It’s fucking impressive that his brain has even functioned this much. 

“The vans are gone,” Fergus says. “Where are you going to go?”

“Run to the Tube station. Get a cab from there. No problem.”

Fergus smirks, and reaches up to adjust the scarf, pulling it up a little bit over Adam’s nose. 

“It seems like a problem.”

“Nah. Bit of adrenaline first thing, get the heart going. See you later, yeah?”

Fergus kisses Adam’s forehead, the only bit not covered up. 

“Thank you,” he says, as Adam wrenches the door open and peers out. 

“Only for you, and don’t you fucking forget it.”

(+i)

Adam has had a shit afternoon.

Fergus can tell that the moment that he appears in the living room, and not just because the first thing he says is, “I’ve had a shit afternoon.”

He looks exhausted, practically grey in the face, bags under his eyes that he’d have to check at the airport if he tried to carry them through. He chucks his satchel on the table and collapses onto the sofa beside Fergus. Fergus leans in to put a friendly arm around him, and then practically gags. 

“You stink,” he says, shoving Adam away from him. “What have you been doing, sucking someone off in a sauna?”

“Piss off,” Adam replies, but there’s no heat in it and he doesn’t fight back when Fergus pulls him to his feet. 

“Go and have a shower before I pass out.”

These evenings always go the same way, when Adam has been off doing his own thing, wheeling and dealing his way around Westminster. Adam complains, and then Adam does as he’s told, because sometimes Fergus is right about things and it’s only when Adam is this strung out that he will admit that. Then Adam eats whatever Fergus puts in front of him, which is usually beans on toast, or maybe some scrambled eggs if he’s lucky, and _then_ Fergus leads him through to the bedroom, no matter how early it is. 

Tonight it’s only seven o’clock, but Adam is dead on his feet. 

“Who _were_ you blowing this afternoon then?” Fergus asks, pushing Adam’s post-shower jogging bottoms down over his hips. No pants underneath. Nice. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Adam says, lifting his arms so that Fergus can pull his t-shirt over his head. “Don’t make me talk about that fucking snake pit.”

“Alright.”

That’s an easy request. Fergus doesn’t really want to talk about it anyway. He’s more interested in Adam’s neck - more specifically, in kissing it, sucking on the hard skin at Adam’s shoulder until Adam is bruised, and slick with his spit. Adam’s hands rove slowly over his back, and he’s not at all bothered that he’s naked and Fergus isn’t. The bastard has no reason to be coy, of course. No tummy on Adam Kenyon. 

Eventually, Fergus pushes Adam down onto the bed and undresses himself; shirt and suit trousers that he should have got rid of hours ago. It’s slow and unhurried, and Adam is watching him with dark eyes, as he hangs up the trousers and tosses the shirt into the washing basket. He never used to hang up the trousers, until Adam shamed him into it. It does save a lot of wrinkles, irritatingly. He’s always fucking right.

It’s always good like this. Fergus takes his time with his hands ghosting over Adam’s hot skin, lets Adam kiss him if he wants, isn’t offended if he doesn’t feel like it. Adam is always busy. He never stops, a buzzing lightning bolt of energy, and it’s only when Fergus has him in his bed that Adam lets go. He’d not be human if that little bit of power didn’t sometimes go to his head. So when he feels like it, when Adam is hot and writhing underneath him and never before, Fergus reaches for the bottle of lube and the condom that is always just waiting there. 

On this evening, Adam is already begging. 

“Come on, Ferg, please. Hurry the fuck up.”

Fergus kneels, rolls on the condom, and opens the bottle. Adam’s watching him, hungry and a little bit desperate, so he makes a show of letting the lube drip over his fingers and listens to Adam’s frustrated growl. It goes right through him, and he smiles. 

“Patience, Kenyon.”

“Fuck off.”

These evenings always go the same way. Fergus takes his time again, slowly opening Adam up, feeling all of the tension Adam’s been carrying in his muscles leech out of him as he starts with just one teasing, frustrating finger.

And eventually, Adam will let go, go boneless in his hands. And then – only then – does Fergus fuck him like he wants him to. And that won’t be quick either. 

“You’re a bastard,” Adam half sobs into his shoulder, as he comes over Fergus’ hand, finally, after the slow strokes have driven him mad. 

“I know,” Fergus pants. “But I’m your bastard. 

He comes when Adam bites his neck in reply. 

“That will bruise,” he complains, his hand over the sensitive skin. “There will be rumours.”

Adam is already half asleep, exhausted, and Fergus yawns, fetches a flannel from the bathroom. He cleans them both up and tucks Adam in, duvet tight around him. Soothing. 

“I’ll be back,” he whispers, but Adam is already asleep. 

Fergus wanders to the kitchen, makes himself a cup of tea. Finds half a doughnut in the fridge and eats it standing over the sink. He takes his tea back in to the bedroom and picks up the iPad on the way, his headphones already plugged in and dragging on the floor.

Back in bed, Adam wraps himself around him, like an octopus, and Fergus flicks to BBC iPlayer, sipping his tea and loading the latest QI. 

“Love you,” Adam murmurs, unexpectedly. 

“Love you too. Go to sleep. You’ll be a bitch tomorrow if you’re tired.”

It’s a testament to Adam Kenyon’s character that he can, even whilst mostly unconscious, flip Fergus off.

**Author's Note:**

> I've fallen completely in love with these morons. It was probably inevitable; back in the day, Ge*ffrey Streatfield was playing an underappreciated character in Spooks and I was like - THAT ONE IS MINE. And now, ten years later, he's here playing Fergus and fucking Benjamin Willb*nd is playing Adam and honestly, I am weak and only made of flesh and blood. 
> 
> Fergus and Adam exist as though they were _made_ for me.


End file.
